Therese Coffey is said to have told staff at the Department of Health and Social Care to stop using the Oxford comma in their communications.
The health minister reportedly issued guidance to staff to advise them of her job preferences after she was appointed to the post earlier this month.
The instructions, which the Financial Times said were emailed to staff and posted on the department’s intranet, also told workers to “stay positive”.
The ban on the Oxford comma – a punctuation mark that some people place before the last item on the list – sparked a backlash, with some health workers viewing the instruction as “patronising”.
The email to staff was sent last Thursday and also advised workers to avoid using “slang”. The guidance has reportedly been given the title “new preferences for how the Secretary of State works”.
The Financial Times said the guidance had been sent to workers in Ms Coffey’s department, but had also been forwarded to staff at the UK’s Health Security Agency.
“Extremely patronizing”
Management advises workers to “be positive – if we’ve done something good, let’s say so and avoid double negatives.”
One staff member described the email as “super condescending”, while another said the instruction to use Oxford commas would be perceived by staff as “extremely condescending”.
It is not unprecedented for newly appointed ministers to issue guidance to their staff when they arrive in a new department.
Jacob Rees-Mogg issued his staff with a ‘style guide’ for writing correspondence when he was appointed to the role of Commons Leader in July 2019.
Mr Rees-Mogg’s instructions include a list of banned words and phrases, as well as guidance on how to address MPs and constituents.
His rules specified that entities should be treated as single, that there should be a double space after all periods, and that imperial measures be used when necessary.
His “style guide” also included a ban on the Oxford comma, as staff were told there should be no comma before the word “and” at the end of a list.
The email, sent by Ms Coffey’s office, is said to have irritated some Department of Health and Social Care officials because of its “prescriptive” nature.
One official said: “Although there are usually some guidelines, they are not that prescriptive.”
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